1,001 Novels: A Library of America
Delicious Foods (2015)
by James Hannaham
Ovis, Louisiana
Louisiana: 27/30
I read this whole novel thinking it was set in Mississippi, not Louisiana. It very much reminded me of Paul Beatty, and I was more than a little surprised it took the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America to bring Delicious Foods to my attention. Significantly, Delicious Foods contains an element of transgression in its plot, about a modern-day farm where drug-addicted African Americans are held in sort of debt peonage to a white owned corporation. Crack itself is a character here, who goes by Scotty, if I'm not mistaken, and the protagonist is Delores, a mother-of-one whose life takes a crack induced downward spiral after her do-gooder husband is murdered in vile fashion by contemporary analogues of the KKK for his organizing work in rural Louisiana.
After a trick goes bad and Delores gets a couple of her teeth knocked out, she is easily recruited to the farm, where she is provided with necessities (including crack) and a dormitory type living environment, and compelled to work on harvesting and maintaining a variety of crops, notably watermelon. Despite the marketing materials using the term "slavery" to describe the environment Delores finds herself in, the truth is more complicated, and Hannaham seems to also being working on a critique of the underlying capitalist system as much as he is making any race specific statement. On the other hand, the environment and characters are very specific to the plantation south and "second slavery" system, so there is a complexity of theme that is often absent in the works in the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America project.
There is also nothing specifically Louisiana about Delicious Foods, rather it is a work from a third area, the delta, which crosses state lines in the north of Louisiana and the center of Mississippi.
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